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This is a response/reflection to my friend Jay Brown’s tripartite blog entitled: “The Problem of Christian Music.” Before you read this blog, I invite you to read his blog, comment if necessary, then return for my response.

1. Sacred vs. Secular categorization is a dubious construct. I’m sure Jay will agree with me here, at least in part. There are no clear boundaries when looking at communities of faith and culture to determine what is “Christian” and what is “non-Christian/Secular.” The word secular comes from the Greek saeculum, which literally refers to the time period or age when an event occurs. If we look at the term secular in this way, then we’re living in a Post 9/11 age or saeculum. Secular later came to mean someone who is not bound by monastic or clerical vows, or simply put, part of the laity. It was only later, through the philosophies of Marx, Feuerbach, and Nietzsche (thanks in part to Hegel’s dialectic) that God was sent packing.

In other words, clear sacred and secular boundaries don’t exist. It’s all part of the leftover modern obsession/compulsion, where we need to neatly categorize everything. You don’t have to look far to find God outside of the church, and that’s actually where God intends us to go…but I’ll save that for a later discussion. And it won’t take you long to realize that there is still the Ananais and Sapphira strain of DNA left in the church. Google “church scandal” and you’ll see what I mean.

This is all a verbose way of saying that there is a messy (a)theism going on both in churches and in culture. There is nothing you can point to and say, “A-ha! That’s distinctly Christian. Look over there! That’s devil music.” You’ll be disappointed every time. I’m not saying that if you listen long enough that you can witness God moving through the music of Marilyn Manson…or maybe you will. What I am saying is that it requires “eyes to see and ears to hear” to find God amongst the bang and the clatter.

2. Christian radio has a target audience. A 2008 survey by Dunham+Company found that the typical Christian radio listeners are women 45-54, Pentecostal/Charismatic, living in the south (Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida), politically conservative, and 71% attend church regularly while 10% never attend church.

In a breakdown of preferred programming, 56% listen primarily for music (predominantly women 18-44), 40% prefer teaching or sermons, and 16% said talk was a primary reason to listen to talk radio. Of course, this all adds up to more than 100%, but we won’t be too picky with Dunham+Company. While Christian radio does need more variety in it’s programming, it seems that the core audience is happy and that a large portion of Christian radio listeners also want sermons and teaching as part of the programming.

I don’t listen to Christian radio, which is fine because K-Love isn’t going after progressive Christians or “cultured despisers.” They’re broadcasting for people who pay the bills, and rightly so because it’s a business. If you don’t like it, change the channel.

3. Christian artists find themselves theologically homeless. There are ultra-conservative websites that attack Christian musicians for being too “worldly” and not having enough mentions of God or Jesus, and when musicians “crossover” (again part of the dubious Sacred vs. Secular borderline) they are accused of selling out to the principalities and powers. Meanwhile, progressive Christians and cultured despisers critically pan or wholly ignore music that is created within the Contemporary Christian genre, and instead listen to mainstream artists (U2, Bruce Springsteen, etc.) that have songs immersed in spiritual themes.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t listen to U2 and Bruce Springsteen. Their music is refreshing and speaks to our religious core like no praise and worship song ever could. What I am saying is that it’s time for progressive Christians to (re)engage Christian musicians and artists, to descend from atop the ivory towers and high horses, to shed elitism and pretentiousness…to listen. I speak for myself when I say that I’ve been given eyes but do not see and ears but do not hear. I’m with Jay that Christian music needs to reboot, but we can’t demand that musicians write better songs if we won’t listen.

4. Progressive Christians need to (re)engage mass media. As one who has mocked Christian radio and television programming incessantly for the better part of 7 years, it’s time for progressive Christians (including myself) to think creatively about mass media.

I’m not suggesting we take to the channels and airwaves and become the Keith Olbermann answer to the religious right, although that would be interesting. There needs to be an influx of forward thinking, sane yet interesting Christians in radio and television. And don’t get me wrong, with the advent of social media (blogs, twitter, youtube, ustream, podcasts etc.) anyone can have a voice , but there are few blogs and podcasts that have the weight of radio and television. You can’t tell me that TBN is the best we have.

I’m suggesting we take the parable seriously:

“The kingdom of heaven is like a yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough.”

There are many other thoughts brewing in my mind, but they are still fragmented at this moment, so I’ll pause here and leave space for your thoughts/comments. But before I do, I’ll ask that you pray for this man because he’s

“looking for a reason, roaming through the night to find my place in this world,
my place in this world.”

If you haven’t seen the movie Inception, the premise of the movie is that Leonardo DiCaprio is an extractor who steals secrets from people’s minds while they are asleep and dreaming. After a failed extraction on a powerful business man named Saito, DiCaprio finds out that Saito was auditioning the team to perform a more difficult form of inception: implantingan idea into a person’s mind while they are asleep.

At Big Tent Christianity, Anthony proposed the idea of justice as inception. In this sense justice is not an abstract idea, but something deeply implanted in us that moves us to action. If we are truly people of God, then we can’t talk about justice without doing justice. We can’t preach about caring for the alien, the orphan and the widow without knowing a few. We can’t believe that God will “make the crooked places straight” (Isa 45:2), if we are complicit in making things “crooked.”

Justice as Inception isn’t a new idea. It’s not inherently postmodern either, although it does give me another reason to watch the movie again. Micah 6:8 comes to mind:

He has showed you what is good. And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

To be a person of God requires a different set of eyes and ears, so that we are moved to action when we see or hear injustice. It requires that we speak truth to power (i.e. Nathan saying to David “You are the man!”) but only after removing whatever planks are blocking our own vision. Once we’ve been incepted with the idea of justice, there’s no turning back, and the world we now live in is wildly different from the world before.

Justice as Interruption

Justice is interruption.

When we tend to think of justice, particularly in America, we think of justice as “restoring the balance” or “getting what is rightfully owed.” We often see justice as “reward” or “retribution.” It’s hard not to view justice this way with all the small claims court shows (Judge Judy, People’s Court, Eye for an Eye, etc.) and personal injury attorney commercials.

While those types of justice have their place in society, that is not the type of justice that we’re called to embody. “You’ve heard it said, but I say to you…” justice is what we’re called to take to the streets. It’s Jesus ransacking the temple to drive out profiteering, preventing the stoning of an adulterous woman and forgiving her sin, picking wheat with the disciples and healing a man’s hand on the Sabbath. It’s that messy, subversive, and at times law-breaking justice that makes the crooked places straight. It’s the kind of justice that makes law-abiding citizens and suburbanites squirm.

Justice interrupts the daily rhythms of life and it wakes us up at night. It makes us uncomfortable…and it should. The gospel is a great message but a difficult one. It’s much easier to be the Priest and the Levite than the Good Samaritan. It’s easier for us to avoid the road from Jerusalem to Jericho altogether because “that’s a bad neighborhood.” Justice requires that we go into unusual and uncomfortable places, and moves us to commune at the table with unlikely people.

Justice interrupts because it washes away all pretension and complacency. It’s why Amos, and later Martin Luther King Jr. exclaimed:

Justice is motion. It’s four students sitting at a segregated lunch counter in Greensboro, NC. It’s a bishop celebrating mass with his people in El Salvador, and taking a bullet after calling on soldiers of the country to stop the repression and violence. It’s a man being imprisoned after marching against apartheid.

Justice is part of our ethos. It’s that response deep within us that says “no more.” Justice moves us to takes risks. It moves us to subvert. Justice opens our eyes to a new world. Justice costs us everything with no promise of reward.

Have you been incepted?

These are only a few fragmented phrases on the idea of Justice as Inception/Interruption. If you wish to continue the conversation about justice, please leave any comments you have below.

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Avoid the instinct of hitting the back button and marinate in the fact that you’re seeing the word Christmas 5 months before it actually occurs. And now you are feeling all the joys, sorrows, and pains that come with said holiday. The presents, the absurd amount of food, the in-laws, the 24 hour marathon of A Christmas Story, and the crazy (good or bad) uncle that you can’t (but wish to) live without.

This post is double-faceted. That is there are two facets. Two prongs? Double-pronged? In other words, this post comes in two parts.

And so without much more ado about nothing,
I present to you Christmas in July, or
An Insomniac’s and Sleep Apneic’s Guide to Galaxy.

First of all, there are Christmas in July shoppers out there. Beware! They could be among you. They could be loved ones, family members, husbands and wives (But not children, they like to wait until the last day, hour, minute, hell they’ll probably get your gift right before they see you so it’s probably from Walmart or your attic). Like Jesse Spano from Saved By the Bell, these valedictorian, sudoku loving, overachievers like to stay ahead by making a list and checking it twice in the sweltering month of July. The month that is named, aptly, after Julius Caesar.

I happened to come in contact with a certain Caesarian (double entedre) Christmas shopper today. This summer Santa had a list of 50 things, two (two by two?) of which were DVDs: Glory and Silence of the Lambs. She was, as previously stated, shopping for her family for Christmas. She will have to wait for the Christmas cards, or will she? She probably has an attic-full stored from previous years shopping along with with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. I have grandparents so I know how that goes. I digest…er digress. I was able to procure both movies for her, both of which are excellent and whoever receives them I’m sorry that I’m spreading the news about your gift 5 months in advance to the world (Correction: the 5 people that read this).

And now for the second facet…prong…Caesarian story (let’s face it you thought I was going to say section, but alas, I’m the bigger person for not making that reference, and you should be ashamed for thinking that I would stoop to that level). And this prong, facet, C-story is totally unrelated to the first.

Today, at 10:00 PM I played a Christmas CD in Barnes and Noble. I was tired of the in store CDs that we’ve been playing to death. So much that the CD player eats them like Cookie Monster and spits out little CD crumbs. Very quietly and without notice, as the Paul Potts CD came to a close I slipped in the Christmas CD. It was a Classical/Choral take on traditional Christmas songs/hymns. The first song, Once in Royal David’s City was nearly inaudible and sounded much like a typical Adagio, so that you can’t hear what is being played, much like a person talking in their sleep.

Soon as the choir began singing more recognizable tunes, people began to ask the questions: Is that Christmas music? Why are you playing Christmas music? Christmas music in July? The rest of the staff was about to kill me. Take a hearty portion of the Grinch, 2 parts Marv and Harry from Home Alone, a dollop of Ebenezer Scrooge, and a dash of Clark Grizwold (the part where he goes insane):

Where do you think you’re going? Nobody’s leaving. Nobody’s walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. No, no. We’re all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here. We’re gonna press on, and we’re gonna have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny fucking Kaye. And when Santa squeezes his fat white ass down that chimney tonight, he’s gonna find the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse.

I did make one person happy with my late night, Messiah welcoming, Christmas caroling CD in the month of Caesar. It was a man in our store code name Zacchaeus. No we don’t actually call him that, I just made it up. However, he does fit the physical description. He is notorious for evangelizing people in our store, making customers feel uncomfortable, and being asked by our managers to stop. We, Barnes and Noble, are the Romans. And the Caesar joke is now complete. I’m the Roman Centurion. Okay now it’s complete.

He gave thanks and praise to me (which is blasphemy) for playing the CD at such an odd time of the year…July is the seventh month if we’re going by Roman standards. By the way may I state that “dec” means 10 and December is the 12th month of the year. Something fishy is going on here Jesus. And don’t give me any BS about adding January (door) and Februrary (purification).

Zacchaeus thanked me profusely for my frankincense and myrrh offerings ( if you’re wondering what happened to my Gold click here) and proceeded to ask me if it was because I was a believer. I punched 1 Peter 3:15 right in the kisser. Pow! Right in the Kisser. Pow! Right in the Kisser. Although I am a believer (depending on your standards), this was not my intention for playing the music. I’m sure even Pilate would’ve liked some Christmas music now and again, and so I bring the spirit of Christmas to the biggest Grinch of them all (If this last sentence doesn’t earn me eternal damnation then give us Barabbus…I’m not sure what that means. Okay I lie):

Your soul is an apalling dump heap overflowing
with the most disgraceful assortment of deplorable
rubbish imaginable,
Mangled up in tangled up knots.

And thus was the tale of Christmas in July.
At least as best as I can recall from the fragmented shards of memories from my sea horse.
I’m sorry but all questions must be submitted in writing.
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